


Love Above The Clouds

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Steampunk AU, Steampunk Airships, and not forgetting of course - Belle in fancy garters, rcij
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:10:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7557865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rumbelle Christmas in July fic for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/equipoise/pseuds/TheScholarlyStrumpet">TheScholarlyStrumpet</a>!</p>
<p>Captain Gold of the <em>Dark Castle</em> air clipper is trying (and failing) to tell himself that his feelings towards his lovely chief engineer, Officer French, are a figment of his imagination. Little does he know that Officer French is having similar thoughts herself…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Above The Clouds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheScholarlyStrumpet (equipoise)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/equipoise/gifts).



**Love Above The Clouds**

The _Dark Castle_ , finest and fastest air clipper in the Merchant Flying Navy, rocked precariously from side to side as a particularly violent gust of wind buffeted the balloon above it. Although her captain had flown in many storms and weathered worse conditions than this, he was beginning to think that there was in fact something seriously wrong with the ship. It should not have been rolling in quite such a dramatic fashion. Captain Gold looked over at the bank of instruments on the wall beside him at the helm, their gleaming brass dials inset in rich walnut wood showing him the conditions outside. The wind speed was not so terrible that their stabilisers shouldn’t have been able to compensate for the movement. He thanked God that they weren’t carrying any passengers and that all his crew were experienced fliers used to the unpredictability of the open sky. He had no desire for anyone to fall ill as a result of the _Dark Castle_ ’s apparent failings.

“Captain,” the voice of the ship’s navigator began, somewhat nervously. “I really think something might be wrong with the mechanics, if you know what I mean.”

Gold looked down from the helm at Officer Milliner, standing beside the large globe that tracked their progress around the world on their long delivery missions, holding onto its frame with white knuckles to try and prevent the heavy marble sphere from toppling over. The fine needle that showed their current location was jumping about all over the place, and although Gold would admit to relying on Jefferson to tell him precisely where he was at any given moment in time, he knew for a fact that they were not currently flying in elaborate figure-eights over the deserts of Africa.

“I’ll never recalibrate it if this keeps up,” Jefferson said, clutching the globe protectively as the ship pitched again and the idiolocator jumped to Antarctica.

Gold sighed and took one hand off the wheel that he had been holding in iron grip, grabbing the speaking tube from the instrument panel and turning the transmitting dial to the engine room.

“Officer Humbert, please report.”

There was no response, and Gold spoke again. “Officer Humbert, this is Captain Gold on the bridge. Report.” Again he was met with silence, save for the howling of the wind outside. Gold gave a huff of frustration. “Humbert, what the hell is going on down there?”

There was a slightly metallic-sounding crackle and finally Graham’s voice could be heard on the other end of the line. He was panting heavily and it was obvious that he had run from the other end of the engine room to answer Gold’s summons.

_“One of the stabilisers got knocked out of place, sir,”_ he explained. _“French has gone up to fix it.”_

“On her own?” Gold exclaimed, then he gave a slight cough, trying not to betray to Graham just how frantically worried he was at this news. The thought of Belle dangling at great heights above the vast cavity of the engine room, in the midst of all the heat and smoke and steam, almost gave him a heart attack.

_“Yes, sir, she said it would only take a moment and the rest of us were better off fixing things down here.”_

Gold sighed. “That woman is going to be the death of me,” he muttered.

_“What was that, sir?”_ Graham asked.

“Nothing, Humbert. Just keep the boilers steady whilst we go through the storm. Gold out.”

_“Righto, sir.”_

There was another metallic crackle as Graham hung up his end of the speaking tube, and Gold twisted the dial again before barking a simple order into the copper mouthpiece.

“Brace for braking.”

It set off a chain reaction; all over the ship the message was being passed on, and the sounds of people hurrying to check that machinery was securely strapped down permeated through the vessel to the bridge. Jefferson was still clinging to his precious globe as if his life depended on it and Gold raised an eyebrow at him.

“Jefferson, if that falls and crushes you to death, I am not going to be held responsible, nor will I explain the circumstances to your wife.”

There was a loud clang from the speaking tube indicating that someone elsewhere in the ship wished to speak to the bridge, and Gold yanked up the tube again. The receiving dial spun to indicate that it was the galley calling.

“Captain Gold on the bridge.”

_“Captain, please tell my idiot of a husband to step away from the globe or I’ll make him wish he had!”_ said the irate voice on the other end of the line.

“Certainly, Mrs Milliner.”

Jefferson’s wife hung up and Gold looked down at his second-in-command with a polite smile. Grumbling a little, Jefferson left the globe alone and came up onto the platform where Gold still stood at the helm.

“I can’t believe that Alice called the bridge,” he muttered. “I keep telling her not to.”

“When it comes to your personal safety, Jefferson, your wife is welcome to call as many times as she likes, because at least I know that one of you is concerned about you not dying. Now, everyone’s had ample warning.”

Gold yanked down hard on the heavy lever beside the helm that operated the brakes. The ship took a while to come to a standstill in the sky; its engines creaked and groaned under the strain, and the pipes clanked as the steam which powered the heavy turbines was redirected to run the opposite way for a minute or so before finally bypassing the machinery altogether and venting out into the mid-afternoon atmosphere. It was not often that the airships braked fully in mid-flight like this; the pressure on the balloon from staying stationary whilst still evading gravity’s inevitable pull was too great a strain for it to be done regularly, but sometimes needs must, and fixing the stabilisers in the middle of a storm was one of those needs.

The marble globe teetered on its metal moorings for a few agonising moments, then all was still and calm apart from the occasional pitch from the wind against the balloon.

Jefferson looked over at Gold, as if to say ‘now what?’ and Gold let out a long sigh, taking his hands off the still helm at last and fastening the straps that would lock it in place and prevent any tampering before his return to it.

“Officer Milliner, recalibrate the navigator. I’m going to check that our young genius hasn’t got herself killed.”

Jefferson saluted with a wry smile and returned to his globe, and Captain Gold left the bridge.

It was a legend amongst the Merchant Flying Navy that you weren’t considered a true captain until your crew could hear you coming. It was a dangerous life on board the airships and injuries were frequent. Almost every veteran captain in the fleet had some kind of mechanical assistance, and Gold was no exception to those that clanked, clicked or hissed as they moved. He was simply grateful he hadn’t lost his foot completely: Killian Jones had lost a hand, Jones’ father had lost an eye and ear, and old Blackbeard had parted company with both legs at once in one of the most horrific accidents the Navy had ever known. And yet, they all still continued to fly, more at home in the air than they had ever been on land. As cumbersome as the brace locked around his ankle was, Gold was glad of the soothing hiss of its miniature pistons with every step he took, as without it he would have been grounded for good.

The crew nodded to him as he passed down into the heart of the ship and the vast engine complex that kept the _Dark Castle_ airborne. It was not as noisy now as it would be normally, with the propeller turbines at a standstill, but the boilers keeping the balloon inflated and steady were still constantly bubbling, and the engine hands were stoking the fires beneath them ready for when the ship began to sail again. It was a hot, dirty environment, and Gold wiped his brow with his handkerchief as he went over to Officer Humbert, the man in charge of keeping the _Dark Castle_ ’s engine room in good order.

“Where is she, Humbert?” Gold asked, aware that his voice was somewhat pained. Thankfully Graham took no notice of his tone, indeed he was used to it. It was a question asked of him at least once a week whenever the chief engineer went missing, and he simply pointed towards the ceiling of the cavernous room.

Gold pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why am I not surprised?” he muttered. To Graham, he added aloud: “Very good, Humbert. I’ll let you know when we’re moving again.”

“Righto, sir.”

Graham left to go back to his post below, supervising the boiler crew, and Gold continued towards the tight spiral staircase at the other end of the gantry that crossed the engine room. He was almost at the top when he heard a clear, musical voice call down to him from the lofty heights above.

“There’s no use trying to be discreet, Captain,” Belle French said, and Gold could hear the mischievous smile in her voice. “I can hear you coming.”

Gold did not deign to reply until he had reached the top of the staircase and could peer up into the darkness above. He could just make out the soles of Belle’s boots dangling from the maintenance platform, and the occasional flash of a welder’s flame illuminated her face. She seemed for all the world to be concentrating intently on her task, but Gold knew that behind those darkened goggles, her eyes were bright and amused.

“That’s the point, dearie,” he called back. “Now what are you doing up there?”

“I’m fixing the loose stabiliser,” Belle replied patiently. “Or would you rather your entire crew became airsick because your poorly designed ship started trying to throw them out of the portholes at every turn?”

“I would rather you didn’t go up there alone,” Gold said pointedly. “What if something happens?”

“Oh Captain, nothing will happen. It’s just a bit of welding. I’m almost done. Thank you for braking, by the way. It makes it so much easier.”

“Well, people might talk if I let my chief engineer get burned to a cinder,” Gold said dryly. “I’d never get another cargo in my life.”

“Your concern for my welfare is, as always, greatly appreciated,” Belle replied sweetly. The spark of the welding flame came again and then died with Belle’s exclamation of triumph. “There! All done. See, Captain? We’re fixed in a jiffy.”

Gold sighed. “Thank you, Officer French.”

“All in a day’s work, Captain Gold.”

There was the rasp of ropes being untied and the steady squeak of a crank being turned, and the maintenance platform began to lower towards him, Belle’s boots getting ever closer until he could see the rest of her as well. She was still a good twenty feet above him when she stopped, the platform having descended as far as it would go. She was sitting on the small wooden slat and swinging her legs like a bored child, and she smiled down at Gold, pushing the dark goggles up onto the top of her head.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” she said. “Anything else I can do for you whilst I’m up here?”

Gold shook his head in despair. “Sometimes I wonder why I hired you.”

“Because I’m incredibly good at what I do?” Belle suggested.

“You’re a liability,” Gold countered.

“I know. But I’m perfectly safe, Captain. I’m all strapped in.” She patted the sturdy leather harness that kept her attached to the platform. There was a pause and then Belle spoke again. “Maybe you were bowled over by my technical expertise and you simply _had_ to hire me before anyone else snapped me up.”

It took Gold a moment to realise that they had switched back to the previous topic, but he soon came back with a remark of his own.

“I think it goes more along the lines of me being the only person mad enough to take a chance on you.”

“And have I ever let you down?” Belle asked pointedly.

Gold had to shake his head, indeed she had not let him down from an engineering point of view at all. She was more than satisfactory, and if asked he would definitely go so far as to say that she was possibly the best chief engineer that the _Dark Castle_ had ever seen. No, her failings came solely from her uncanny ability to give him palpitations with alarming regularity. He thought back to the first occasion that he had met Belle French. He and Jones had been in the admiral’s office discussing their latest shipments when she had walked in, as calm as you please, and asked to be interviewed for the available chief engineer position – Gold and Jones were sharing an engineer and needed a new one as a matter of urgency before they set out on their next runs.

The admiral had been too stunned to respond at first and on recovering his senses had decided not to dismiss the two captains as surely, interviewing a woman with no experience, no education from any of the prestigious engineering academies and no references couldn’t take too long. As it had turned out, though, Belle French was a force to be reckoned with, and what she hadn’t taught herself about steam engineering was not worth knowing.

To let that depth of intrinsic knowledge go simply because it was in the body of a woman would have been a terrible oversight, so whilst Jones and the admiral were busy telling her that although her dedication was to be admired, they really couldn’t help her, Gold had simply told her to report to the _Dark Castle_ for take-off at four o’clock next morning.

He did not regret his decision, nor the dressing down from the admiral that he had received after it. They’d been working the roughest routes ever since, but with Gold’s steady hands at the helm and Belle’s delicate ones on the complex engines, they had come through unscathed.

“I think you were lonely,” Belle said, unstrapping her harness and clipping the welding gear onto one of the many carabiners hanging from her belt in preparation for the final part of her descent.

“Officer French, I command a crew of thirty, how can I possibly be lonely?”

“You know what I mean.”

It was true, he supposed. He hadn’t realised how much Belle French’s conversation had been missing in his life until he’d become accustomed to their taking tea together on the bridge whilst Jefferson was occupied elsewhere.

Belle reached out with one hand and foot to grab the ladder riveted to the wall that would bring her down to the top of the staircase where Gold currently stood. Perhaps if she was not still wearing her thick leather welding gloves, it would not have happened. The atmosphere in the engine room was damp and oily from the constant steam, and a slippery membrane adhered to every surface, including the ladder. Belle’s foot slipped, and her hand in its glove could not gain purchase on the rung. Before either of them had time to exclaim, Belle was tumbling through the air and heading straight down towards the vast metal boilers, emanating heat. If the fall didn’t kill her then the hot brass surely would.

There was no conscious thought involved. Gold simply threw his arms out to catch her and she landed there gracefully, both of them stunned into silence by the suddenness of the events. The only sounds were the hum of the boilers and the persistent hiss from Gold’s ankle brace, protesting at taking the extra weight.

“Is everything ok?”

Gold glanced down to see Graham looking up from the engine room floor, his face worried.

“Captain Gold?” Belle’s voice pervaded his senses and he looked down at her face. She looked shaken, but otherwise unharmed, her bright blue eyes wide and piercing. “Captain Gold, I’m all right. You can, erm, put me down now.”

“Oh. Yes. Right. Yes.” With an embarrassed cough, Gold set Belle’s feet back on the floor and she brushed herself down, not meeting his eyes before racing off down the stairs back into the bowels of the ship. Gold listened to the echoing of her footsteps on the metal, and tried very hard not to dwell on the memory of her in his arms, clutched against his chest.

X

Belle regarded herself critically in the looking glass in her small cabin. It was the one real frippery that she had allowed herself when she had embarked upon this life dominated by men – the opportunity of knowing that she was always looking her best made her feel at her best all the time. She felt that it gave her some sway among the rest of the senior crew if she could still present herself as immaculately turned out as they were despite having spent most of her day in the filthy engine room. With her face scrubbed clean of the grease and grime of the day and her hair brushed into its natural curls from the functional braid that she wore it in whilst working, she could almost pass for a highborn lady passenger rather than an engineer. Only her hands betrayed her – rough and scarred from close encounters with sharp tools, scalding steam, and vicious chemicals.

Belle looked from her hands back to her face in the glass, and she touched a fingertip to her dry lips. For a moment back in the engine room, when the captain had broken her fall to her certain doom, their eyes had met, and Belle had been convinced that he was going to dip in and kiss her. But he had not, and so they had just continued to stare into each other’s souls until the moment had passed and Belle had scurried away before any awkward questions could be asked by the rest of the crew. Even now, she could still feel his arms around her, strong and steady, and she remembered how safe she had felt in his embrace. She tried to physically shake the thoughts away. It would not do to keep thinking of the captain in such an inappropriate way; never mind that she had been wondering what his arms felt like for many months and now she actually knew. He had made it clear when he had first hired her that he was only interested in her mind and what benefit her insight could bring to his ship. There was no point whatsoever in whimsical wonderings of their professional relationship perhaps becoming something more.

All the same, he had looked so much like he wanted to kiss her, and Belle would have been more than happy if he had ceded to that urge.

She turned her attention away from the mirror once more and focussed instead on the papers in front of her on the small desk, dipping her pen into her ink (always blue, her favourite colour), and beginning to write up her weekly engineering report for the captain. The methodical work helped to ease her mind for a while until, soon enough, she got to the events of today. One of the junior engineers had taken out one of the ship’s most important stabilisers to clean it at their last dock, and it had not been replaced correctly; as soon as they had hit the violent thermal winds it had been knocked out of position and damaged, thus necessitating her hasty welding job.

Belle looked down at the report and the details of the repairs she had made and the materials used, so that the quartermaster could keep track for their next restock. As far as the report was concerned, the incident was at a close. There was no need for her to mention what had happened after her repairs had been effected, but here she was again, unable to stop thinking about it. Perhaps it was a good thing that they had been too preoccupied with the storm outside to partake of tea today. Belle had no idea what they would have talked about in the wake of the event. She sighed and put down her pen, watching the ink dry on the paper, and she wondered when she had first fallen in love with Captain Gold. It was a fact she had denied to herself for a long time, but now it was time to accept it, and, equally, to do something about it before it became a problem – if it wasn’t already one. It wasn’t love at first sight, or even at second or third. Belle’s first impression of the man was that he was utterly terrifying, her second was that he was a sly bastard and her third was that he was intending to have a jolly good laugh at her expense. She was by her own admission young and inexperienced, but she knew enough of the world and had lived in it long enough to be cynical of anything given in good faith. The position as chief engineer of an air clipper of the _Dark Castle_ ’s calibre, however, had been too good to refuse.

And in the end, the humiliation that she had been expecting and preparing for had never come. From the very start, Gold had treated her as one of his valued crew, as if she had been flying with him for years, calling her _Officer_ rather than _Miss_ , and quickly squashing any licentious tongues with a glare that could have frozen hell over. It must have been the tea, she thought. That day when he had invited her to have tea with him on the bridge, as was customary for all captains and their newest officer recruits, and she had been so nervous under the weight of his penetrating dark gaze that she had dropped and chipped a teacup.

Belle had noticed that he seemed rather attached to that cup now; he always used it whenever they took tea together and it made her wonder, for Gold was not a man particularly given to sentimentality. Perhaps she should ask him about it the next time that she saw him drink from it. Then again, perhaps not.

Her candle was burning low and she snuffed it out, sitting in the darkness for a while. Officer Nolan, the quartermaster, had refused to refill her oil lamp until they reached their next dock, stating that she already used more lamp oil than most of the rest of the crew put together. It wasn’t Belle’s fault that she had a tendency to get carried away reading late into the night and thus used up her lamp’s oil far quicker than anyone else. It was just the way she was. Still, she really didn’t fancy going down and asking him for yet more candles just yet, so she would have to be frugal for a while. If it was a mild night then she could perhaps sneak up onto the roof of the ship and read by the light of the stars. She was certainly in no mood to sleep at the moment.

Belle put on her coat, found her book and left her cabin by touch; as soon as she was outside in the passage she was once more bathed in soft light, the lamps here constantly lit with gas from the engines. There would not be many people around at this time of the night, just the skeleton crews in the engine room and on the bridge to make sure that everything stayed ship-shape, and Belle did not pass anyone as she made her way leisurely along the _Dark Castle_ ’s narrow corridors. There was no rush, and she liked to take the time to tend to the beloved ship she had come to call home, running her hands over the smooth wood and gleaming brass and checking the pressure dials that were inset into the walls every few yards. Everything seemed to be well.

It was only as she passing the captain’s cabin that she realised something and stopped suddenly, the echo of her light footsteps on the floor dying away down the passage.

She had not thanked him. He had saved her life and in all the emotional confusion that had ensued, she had not shown him the slightest gratitude for his act. Well, there was no time like the present, after all. She stepped up to the door and raised her hand to knock, but then thought better of it, lowering her hand again and toying with the ribbon of her book. It was late after all; she couldn’t hear the tell-tale sounds of him moving around in the room. She could always thank him tomorrow when she gave him her report. On the other hand, might that not look like an afterthought? She knew that the captain kept late hours just as she did; Nolan was just as exasperated with the man’s excessive consumption of candles but in less of a position to curtail his superior.

Emboldened by this knowledge, Belle knocked softly on the door and waited for an answer. For a long time she thought that perhaps she had been mistaken and she was just about to walk away and head for the roof when she heard his familiar rich brogue through the wood.

“Enter.”

Belle went in and closed the door behind her.

“Officer French. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“I…” Belle turned from the door and saw the captain for the first time since their encounter in the engine room, and her words died. Gold was sitting on his bed, fully dressed apart from his right boot, which appeared to be in pieces on the floor. The mechanic in her was fascinated by the way it fitted together; she had not realised that the brace and the boot were not two separate entities. The brace, it seemed, was in two parts: reinforced bandage strapping around the joint itself and then the heavy duty frame around the boot, all joined together with screws and bolts. Gold, apparently unaware of her mesmerisation, undid the final fastening and the bandages unravelled, revealing the extensive web of scarring beneath. Belle gasped; it was barely recognisable as an ankle. On hearing her sharp intake of breath, Gold looked up.

“May I help you, Officer French?” he asked. “I’m not usually in the habit of receiving visitors in the small hours.” He followed her gaze down to his foot. “Don’t worry; it looks worse than it is.”

Belle was not entirely sure that she believed him, but decided not to make any mention of it and forced her eyes away from Gold’s feet. The captain raised an eyebrow.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asked, indicating her attire. Belle looked down at the indigo velvet coat and forgave his confusion. At home as they were in the depths of the engine room, engineers did not wear coats as a matter of course like the other officers did, and Belle herself only ever wore hers when going on-dock. Or, like tonight, going on-ship – literally.

“I was just going to… get a breath of fresh air,” she said hastily. The _Dark Castle_ had a small outdoor observation deck that was usually the preserve of any passengers, so it was well enough to let him think that she was going there rather than climbing up onto the roof to watch the stars sail past.

“And you decided to drop in on your way past?” Gold asked, but there was no reproach in his voice.

“Not exactly.” Belle paused, and then her words came out all at once in a grand jumble. “I was walking past and I realised that I hadn’t thanked you for earlier, and it would be poor form to leave it till tomorrow, so I thought…” She trailed off on seeing Gold’s quirked eyebrow. “Thank you,” she said eventually. “You saved my life.”

Gold smiled. It was a warm smile, not the sneer she had seen so often when he was dealing with other ships and other crews who tried his already-worn patience.

“My pleasure,” he said.

His response threw her somewhat. She had been expecting some kind of quip like they usually exchanged, something about not letting his chief engineer die because then he’d have no-one to do all the nasty jobs that keeping steam engines in good order required. The honesty surprised her, and she didn’t know what to say next.

“Well,” she said eventually, “I… I should probably go and leave you in peace.”

She turned, but before her hand could close over the door handle, Gold called her back.

“Wait, Officer French.” Belle glanced over her shoulder. “We didn’t get to have tea earlier.” He waved his hand towards the desk where the tea things sat haphazardly, the chipped cup in pride of place. “You’re quite welcome to join me if you would like.”

Belle smiled. “I’d like that very much, Captain.”

She sat down beside him on the bed – there was not much room anywhere else in the cabin and she did not want to upset the stack of books and papers on the chair – and Gold reached across to pour her a cup before taking up his own. They drank in companionable silence for a while.

“Why do you keep that chipped cup?” Belle asked presently. “You have plenty of others in the set, but I only ever see you using that one.”

Gold did not reply for a long time.

“I suppose it’s because it reminds me of you,” he said at last. “And the memory makes me smile.”

Belle gave a huff of laughter. “I would have thought that a reminder of your chief engineer’s capacity for clumsiness would have the opposite effect,” she said.

“Not your clumsiness,” Gold asserted. “It was the first time that I really got to know you, to know who Isabelle French really was.”

Belle looked sideways at him, but he was completely in earnest.

“And who am I?” she asked softly.

“I’m still learning that,” Gold admitted. “But I know that aside from being even more ridiculously stubborn than me…”

“Captain, no-one is more ridiculously stubborn than you.”

“…aside from being almost more ridiculously stubborn than me,” he amended, “I know that you are a person who cares. You care about the _Dark Castle_ and all her crew in the same way as I do.”

There was almost something missing from the sentence. _I care about you_ , Belle added mentally. _More than anything else, I care about you_.

“Rum,” Gold said suddenly, apropos of absolutely nothing, and Belle looked at him sharply.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My name,” Gold said. “Rum. Short for Raymond. We’re off duty, you needn’t call me Captain.”

“Very well, Rum. You can call me Belle.”

They lapsed into silence again and Belle chanced to speak.

“Why _did_ you hire me?” she asked. “And don’t say because you’d taken leave of your senses; I know that’s not true.”

“I suppose it was because I knew that you were destined to be extraordinary,” Gold said. “The way you held your own against Jones and the admiral. You were so strong and fierce and brave; I knew that you would succeed at whatever you put your mind to, be that engineering or anything else.”

“I wasn’t really brave,” Belle said. “I’m very good at pretending. I was absolutely terrified. It took me four attempts to knock on the admiral’s door. But if you do the brave thing then bravery will follow, I’m sure.” She paused, continuing once her tea was drunk. “You said that I was destined to be extraordinary. Have I lived up to your expectations?”

“Oh Belle, you’ve exceeded them.”

They were so close in the cramped quarters, and Gold was looking at her in the same way that he had looked at her earlier, when he had held her and she had wondered if he was going to kiss her.

Belle was not going to be left wondering this time. Do the brave thing…

Slipping one hand under the curtain of his greying hair to cup his cheek, rough with stubble after a long day on the bridge, she leaned in and pressed her lips against his. He resisted at first, giving a little squeak of protest against her mouth, but before Belle could move away, his arms had come around her, pulling her in close and deepening the kiss.

“Oh Belle,” he breathed as she pulled away. “This is a bad idea.”

“Is it really?” Belle asked, looking up at him through her lashes. His eyes were dark with desire and his breathing was quick; it was clear that he wanted this just as much as she did.

“I’m your captain.”

“I’m your chief engineer.”

“I’m at least twenty years your senior and crippled.” He glanced down at his mangled leg and Belle turned his gaze back towards her with two fingers under his chin.

“You wouldn’t be as respected a captain as you are if you weren’t experienced,” she said. “I know all of that. None of it changes the way I feel about you. I want this. Do you want it too?”

“Belle, I’ve wanted you since practically the first moment I met you,” he breathed.

“Then we can make this work,” Belle said. “I’m not saying that it will be easy, but…”

“Things are different when you live on the wing,” Gold concluded. “Things work in different ways to on land.”

“Yes,” Belle affirmed. “Yes.” She kissed Gold again, this time finding him warm and receptive, and she pulled him in closer by the coat lapels, dragging him down with her until she was lying back against the pillows at the head of the bed. Gold’s lips left her mouth and trailed down over her jaw, down to the hollow of her throat and the collar of her blouse and the cameo she wore there before he looked up at her, a little worried.

“Are you sure, Belle?” he asked.

Belle pressed a fingertip to the frown line between his brows.

“Things are different when you live on the wing,” she quoted back to him. “I’m very sure, Rum.” She gave him a little smirk and was pleased when his expression relaxed. “Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I don’t have the same… _urges_ as any other sailor after weeks without seeing land. And if you are amenable to the idea, I would very much like to fulfil those urges with you.”

Gold chuckled and bent to kiss her lips again. “Indeed I cannot think of anyone I would rather fulfil certain urges with,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if our little teatime appointments could have ended somewhat differently.” He pressed his lips against her cheek. “Perhaps I should just accept that nothing about you should shock me anymore.”

“I don’t know,” Belle mused. “I rather like the idea of never ceasing to amaze you.”

She giggled and unfastened the cameo brooch that held her collar together, allowing Gold to lavish attention on her now-bare neck. All of a sudden she was much too hot inside her long coat, and from the way Gold hastily scrambled out of his own black frock coat and tossed it across the room, he was feeling a similar need to get out of as many layers of clothing as soon as he could.

“Oh, Belle,” Gold groaned against her throat. “Are you…”

“Rum, if you ask me again if I’m sure, I’ll take my pliers to you.”

Gold raised an eyebrow at her as she undid the top few buttons of her blouse.

“Do you make a habit of carrying them on your person at all times?” he asked.

Belle just smiled. “Why don’t you find out?”

“You really shouldn’t tempt me like that,” Gold growled, but his attention was firmly fixed on the tops of her breasts that had now been revealed to him. Belle could feel him stirring against her thigh, and as she sat up to divest herself of her coat, he sprang backwards away from her on the bed. Belle rolled her eyes and shrugged her arms out of the close-fitting sleeves before lunging forwards and capturing his mouth again, taking him by surprise and causing him to topple sideways, landing them in a tangle of limbs, clothing and bedcovers.

“Are you ever going to stop assuming the worst?” Belle asked him once he finally released her lips and she went to work on the knot of his cravat. She had nimble fingers, anyone in her line of work needed them, and the silky fabric slid loose easily under her touch. In the soft lamplight she could now see that it was the same deep indigo colour as her coat, not the black that she had originally thought. The captain wore a lot of black, and it suited him, but Belle did enjoy the days when a little colour brightened his attire. “We match,” she added as she pulled off the cravat and it joined her discarded coat.

“We do indeed.” Gold stilled her hands before she could undo any of his buttons and tentatively reached out to her décolletage, tracing along the skin no longer covered by her blouse, never quite reaching where her corset began.

“I suppose I still can’t believe that this isn’t all just another very pleasant dream,” he said in response to her previous question.

“ _Another_ very pleasant dream?” Belle pressed, her voice teasing. “Tell me, do you often have these very pleasant dreams of me?”

“Too often for comfort.”

“Thank goodness I’m not the only one.” It was true. There had been more than one occasion during the past few months when Belle had woken with a start from this very scenario, face flushed and heart pounding, and she’d had to go and get some fresh air to clear her thoughts before she could face Gold the next day.

“You’ve thought about it too?” Gold asked.

“I already told you, Rum” Belle replied. “I have those same urges. Yes, I’ve thought about this more often than is probably healthy. So please trust me, Rum.”

“I trust you with my life. Not always with your own, though, as your earlier escapades in the engine room prove.”

“That’s different. Trust me with your heart as well as your life.”

“Oh, I already do.”

Belle smiled. “Then trust me with my own heart as well.”

Gold gave a small nod. “That I can do.”

He let her make quick work of his buttons then, and together they pushed waistcoat and shirt from his slim frame, leaving him in just trousers and one boot. Belle had to giggle at the sight and Gold raised an eyebrow at her.

“Has something in particular tickled your fancy?”

She shook her head, and as she felt one of Gold’s hands skim down her side to squeeze the curve of her hip, she wriggled happily in his embrace.

“I’m hoping that you’ll have that honour soon enough,” she paused, and Gold almost choked on thin air.

“You know, I said to Officer Humbert earlier that you were going to be the death of me,” he muttered.

“In that case I shall endeavour to make your end as sweet as possible.” Belle paused. “I was laughing because for the entirety of our conversation, you’ve only been wearing one boot.”

Gold looked down at his feet.

“So I have. I hadn’t noticed.” He reached down and wrenched his other boot off before swinging his legs up on the bed properly, hands returning to Belle’s hips and encouraging her to wrap her legs around him. Whilst she normally wore trousers as a matter of safety whilst working in the engine room, she didn’t wear them whilst she was off duty. Although she might be a woman in a man’s world, she didn’t want that to mean that she could no longer be a lady when the _Dark Castle_ was not clamouring for her attention. Her skirt and drawers rode up as she pulled Gold in closer between her thighs, the captain’s rough hand skimming down her leg until he reached her garter and stopped, brow furrowing. A moment later he held up a dainty pair of pliers from the straps around her thighs.

“You weren’t joking,” he observed.

“Captain Gold, I never joke about my vital equipment,” she said demurely.

“All the same, in the interest of preventing injury…” He unfastened the buckles on the lacy garters and placed them, along with the pliers and the other tools she always carried in case of emergency, on the nightstand. As he leaned over, Belle got a good look at his bare chest. Gold was not the most muscular nor solidly built of men, but the strength in his small stature was evident. She let her hands wander over his skin, flicking over a dark nipple and feeling it tighten under her touch, and tracing a line down a stark white scar on his abdomen.

“Where did you get this?” she asked softly.

“Sky pirates over Madagascar,” Gold replied. There was no shortage of similar lines over his arms and torso, and Belle wanted to hear the story behind each and every one, and kiss them all better, but she could tell that Gold was reluctant to share that information with her just yet. Those were tales of the past, and right now the present was far more enjoyable. She could feel Gold’s erection pressing insistently against her centre and she rubbed up against him, trying to urge him on before she had to take matters into her own hands again. Luckily he took the hint and shifted position, getting comfortable on his knees and turning his attention to her breasts, still trapped in the tight confines of leather corsetry. He pressed his hands over them, fingertips dancing along the line where leather met skin and the silk of her blouse beneath, and Belle arched her back, pressing herself up into his touch, desperate to be free of her constricting garments and feel him skin to skin.

“Oh Belle,” Gold breathed, the husky growl in his voice becoming ever more apparent. His fingers fumbled with the buckles and buttons that held the corset together and he cursed under his breath in frustration. Belle took his hands in hers.

“Let me. I’m feeling really quite overdressed for this occasion at the moment.”

She scrambled off the bed and stood to quickly unfasten everything, and she gave the same sigh of relief once it was off that she gave every night. Whilst she was wearing it, she never really noticed how tight it was until after it came off. Tonight though, with her breathing heavier and heavier, the feeling of freedom was intensified. She shimmied out of her skirt and petticoat before unbuckling her boots; she was about to get rid of her stockings as well but then Gold’s hands were there at the middle of her thighs, under the hem of her drawers.

“May I?” he asked.

“Please be my guest.”

He coaxed her to lift her foot up and rest it in his lap, and he rolled her stocking down her leg achingly slowly, pressing warm kisses along her skin as it was revealed to him, culminating in a kiss to each of her toes. Belle had to grab the nightstand for balance, not entirely because she was standing on one leg but because the feel of Gold’s lips caressing her skin was better than she could ever have imagined it. By the time he had repeated the treatment to her other leg, her knees were ready to give out and she practically flung herself into his lap, wrapping her arms and legs around him tightly and kissing him with a fierce passion that she’d only ever read about in books before – the kind of books she’d had to cover the jackets of in order to hide them from her father. Gold’s hands came to the collar of her half open blouse and he glanced up at her, seeking permission. Belle nodded and he finished off the buttons, spreading the two halves wide to expose her breasts at last. For a long while he just gazed at her, and Belle began to feel somewhat self-conscious. She was not the most rounded of women and whilst her corset shaped her nicely, it did not push her wares up into voluptuous curves like she had seen on the young women who frequented the inns around the docks.

She need not have worried, though, for a moment later Gold had buried his face in her chest, lavishing her skin with kisses and laving his tongue over her stiff, sensitive nipples in turn, making her gasp at the sensation. She could feel the heat pooling between her legs, making the fabric of her drawers damp with her desire.

“Oh Belle, you are truly exquisite,” Gold said. “So very clever, so very driven, and so very beautiful. “May I see all of you Belle, please? Every inch of you as nature intended.”

Belle felt a blush rise in her cheeks; a moment she had as yet only thought about in the privacy and darkness of her own quarters now close at hand.

“As long as the privilege is returned,” she said, fingers toying with the fastenings of his trousers.

They had to break apart by necessity to finish disrobing completely, and there was a moment of silent appreciation as each took in the other in naked entirety.

“Belle…”

Gold didn’t need to say anything else. Belle could hear it all in that one single enunciation of her name, a testament to her beauty and a plea to be allowed to go further all rolled into one.

“Yes,” she replied, hoping that she could convey all that she wanted to say in that one word as well. _Yes, I’m ready. Yes, I want this. Yes, I want you_.

Gold’s hand was dancing along her side where she lay facing him, down over her shoulder, skimming the side of her breast, and coming to rest on her hip, fingertips digging in as she pulled him in for another kiss.

“Yes,” she repeated against his lips. “Please.”

Gold didn’t reply but she felt his soft huff of laughter vibrate through his chest, and his fingers moved slowly over the curve of her hip to comb through the fluffy hair on her mound, petting gently at the tip of her cleft but going no further. Belle wriggled her hips with the need of him. She may not have lain in a man’s bed before, but she was not naïve, and her own fingers had explored her hidden secrets enough to know the touch that she needed and that she was not being given.

“Please touch me,” she whispered in Gold’s ear, lifting her leg to open herself up for him and invite him further before taking his questing hand in hers and pressing up against it, smearing her pooled juices over his fingers. “You can feel that I want it as much as you do.” Belle pressed a fingertip to the head of Gold’s cock, flushed red, with liquid beaded there at the slit. She had seen this moment in her mind’s eye so many times, but now it was actually happening and all her fantasies paled into insignificance beside this wonderful reality.

Gold finally yielded to her encouragement, slipping a finger easily inside her slick cleft and petting gently along her folds. Belle’s hips jerked involuntarily, so sensitised and ready for him even before he’d reached the swollen pearl that positively ached for his touch. She was beginning to think that he would never find it, but then she felt his thumb press tentatively there, and she moaned with happiness at the burst of pleasure that coursed through her body. It would not take much more to tip her over the edge completely but Gold seemed content to take his time, pushing one finger up inside her entrance. She took him in easily and she squirmed as he stroked her inside as well as out, digging her fingers into his arm and burying her face in his shoulder to muffle her pants and cries of pleasure and avoid waking the rest of the crew.

“Please, Rum,” she gasped as he pressed a second finger into her, coaxing more and more slippery liquid out of her and spreading the hot proof of her desire around her folds. A final touch to that hard pink pearl and her climax came, rushing through her veins in a moment of pure joy. None of her heady daydreams could have prepared her for the feeling, with Gold’s arm around her, his fingers inside her, his low voice in her ear murmuring endearments that she could not make out.

For a minute or so, Belle just lay there whilst she came back to herself, trying to commit every part of the glorious moment to memory before it began to fade. She opened her eyes as she felt Gold pull his fingers out of her, and she watched him lick his hand clean before he stroked her mussed up curls out of her face.

“And you say I’m the one with magic fingers,” Belle mumbled.

Gold smirked “I aim to please, Officer French.”

Belle let go of her iron grip on his arm to snake her hand down his chest and abdomen to the thick hair at the base of his cock and his heavy balls below, cupping him in her palm. Gold threw his head back, looking at her through eyes narrowed in pleasure.

“So do I, Captain Gold.”

She took his neglected cock in her hand, stroking him up and down a couple of times to bring him back to full hardness where his erection had flagged after so long unattended, but then Gold stayed her hand.

“Let me be inside you,” he rasped. “Please. Oh Belle, I’ve dreamed about this…”

Belle nodded her acquiescence and let Gold tip her over onto her back, wrapping her legs around his hips as he lined them up, weight on his forearms. He glanced down at her, eyes questioning.

“Yes,” she affirmed, and he thrust inside slowly, until he was in her to the hilt and she could feel his hair tickling around her entrance. It took a while for her to adjust to the sensation, having only had slim fingers inside her before, but as Gold began to move, pulling out almost all of the way and sliding back smoothly, the feeling of being filled and being so impossibly close began to overtake the slight awkwardness of being too stretched inside, and almost without realising, she began to rock her hips in time with Gold’s movement. His pace was increasing, getting more and more erratic, and Belle ran her hands down to his bottom, cupping the firm cheeks and urging him onwards, closer… Belle remembered the first time that she’d seen him bend over without his coat on, and how tempting it had been to go over and squeeze. She did so now, and Gold’s hips jerked in response, pushing him deeper inside. He was close, she could tell, his arms were quivering and his thrusts had lost all sense of the rhythm they’d had before.

“Oh Belle,” he groaned, and she felt him still inside her. _“Belle!”_

He said her name so reverently; it was almost like a prayer falling from his lips. His arms gave out a moment later and he collapsed on top of her, but Belle just held him close, not wanting the moment to end. If she could keep him here in her arms for the rest of her days, she would die a happy woman.

At length she had to let him go, as Gold shifted and his soft cock slipped out of her, but almost as soon as he had rolled out of her tight embrace, he was back, arms around her. Belle snuggled in close against his chest, still damp with perspiration, and she sighed with happiness. They would have to address the state of their relationship sooner rather than later. Would they tell the rest of the crew or would they try to keep it a secret? For now, though, those questions could wait, and they could just enjoy this moment of togetherness that had been such a long time coming. Belle closed her eyes, smiling to herself as Gold stroked her hair absent-mindedly and they both listened to the calm stillness of the night, broken only by the thrumming of the engines far below them.

Just as she was dropping off to sleep, Belle heard Gold mutter something.

“I love you, Belle.”

She stretched up pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek. “I love you too.”

As Belle and Gold drifted off into a sweet and satisfied oblivion, the _Dark Castle_ continued to soar through the night above the clouds, carrying them on towards the future that lay ahead.

 


End file.
